Romanticize College

In my first blog post I discussed the concepts of identity as well as perception. The definition of identity is compilation of your experiences shaped by social, political, and cultural factors. Identity is the answer to the question, “Who am I?” Perception on the other hand is how you see the world, how you see people, and kind of how the world sees you. I talked about the meaning of both and did a slightly deeper dive of the two topics. These topics in particular were meaningful to me because they are things I often think about, perhaps daily. Oftentimes when I think about who I am, I think about having OCD and severe anxiety. This is because they have a role in how I identify and how I see myself and the world around me. 

In my second blog post I went over interdependency and interpersonal relationships. Interdependency is interpersonal communication that only happens when there is something at stake, this is mutual in this relationship. I wanted to talk about the connection between the two. I believe it was meaningful to talk about because I was having a hard time understanding it. 

I am not sure I even had an understanding of communication before taking this class this semester. I did not know any of the concepts before coming to class. I learn how to find concepts that apply in certain situations and identify them while doing the campus culture experience assignments, looking for it intently. 

The most challenging thing about writing the blog post was making sense of the concepts themselves and then trying to make them make sense for someone else to read. Not only that, but trying to make it make sense for other people as well. When writing my blog, I added a lot of my personality in it and made it seem like I was talking to a friend almost or maybe someone my age. 

My posts show the way communication works and concepts can be connected to one’s real life, such as mine because I often made connections to my life and situations that I found related to each concept I chose. Knowing communication principles makes it easier to understand why certain situations involving communication and people in general are happening and what is driving it to happen. 

Interdependency is interpersonal communication that only happens when there is something at stake, this is mutual in this relationship. During the discussion and explanation of this concept, I was truly confused. It seemed like the point was that you have certain relationships for certain reasons. I suppose it could make sense if we think about romantic relationships. Why are two people in a romantic relationship? It is because of love, right? The communication that happens between people who are dating or married is because love is at stake. I am not sure if this fits for this concept, however, I’d like to think of it as a good example. 

We also talked about interpersonal relationships and how culture influences them. I thought about my best friend whom I’ve been friends with for 8 years (almost 9). We have a physical distance between us and also a number of differences in our daily lives that make it hard to see each other. She does school online, has a job, and a boyfriend she sees often. I go to school in person, have so much free time after classes, and only see my boyfriend on the weekends. These things affect us seeing each other while in college. However, we make an effort to facetime and play roblox together. This makes it to where our relationship remains as strong as it has been over the years. I think we have both always played huge roles in each other's lives. The biggest roles that we play for each south probably be giving each other comfort and advice. That is something that I truly take pride in, being the first person she goes to when there is something wrong. Being that close with her makes me the happiest I could be. She too will always be someone I go to when I am struggling with anything. Another role we play in each other's lives would be bringing laughter and joy in our lives. Our personalities and sense of humor is so similar that it just makes it so easy to joke and laugh with her. She is probably the person I have the most inside jokes with. 

Identity and Perception

To define 'Identity' in "scholarly" terms, it is a compilation of your experiences shaped by social, political, and cultural factors . Or at least that is what my communications textbook says. Identity is the answer to the question you most ask your self when you are growing up, "who am I?" When you ask your self this, many different things are going to come up. There will never be one label you will put on yourself.

When we talked about identity in class and I thought about who I am, the first thing I thought about my self was my OCD and anxiety disorder. I thought about this because, having these disorders has an affect on the way I communicate and see the world. I don't like that I thought about these things first because when I think about my self and who I am I think about so many other things. I think about the things that I would want other people to know and see. My little video I put above shows me, who I am, and how I want to be perceived. I am kind, empathetic, creative, fun, social, smart, warm and inviting, and an artist. If I wasn't perceived as such, I'm not sure how I would feel about myself.

I mention the word "perceived" a lot because identity and perception goes hand in hand. Perception is how you see the world. How you see people, how you imagine people see you. Personally I think of how people may be perceiving me pretty much everyday. "How will people think of me if I say this?" "What will people think if I put this outfit on?" Often times, I feel like I am putting on a performance of how I want to identify. Funny enough, this is something we talked about in class as well. There was a pretty well known socialist by the name of Erving Goffman. Goffman proposed the idea that social interaction was that of a theatre performance. Some ways in which you perform your identity are how you talk, the way you dress, your body language, and your overall behaviors.

We did an exercise in class where we chose a role we play in our lives and we thought about what we do and how we perform our roles. I chose my role as a girlfriend. I feel like when I am performing as a girlfriend I am different than I am when I am alone. I try to be sweeter (sometimes that doesn't work because my boyfriend likes to ragebait me) or even "cuter" than how I would be regularly when I am not around my boyfriend. I have to be more mindful of my response, so it is known that I do care and want him around. I usually stay dolled up around him, even though he would mind if I didn't do my makeup and dress up.

There are many roles in which we perform in our lives and it all comes down to identity. Just like how there is not just one label or way we identify, there is not just one role we perform. We are different people in different places and situations. Identity and perception will always be fascinating to me, much like many of the topics we discuss in communications class. However, to me there is just so much within these two concepts/ideas. If we think about it, that is really what Identity is at the end of the day. It is a concept and without learning this concept, it isn't something we would think about. At least that I how I think of it...or I guess perceive it (see what I did there? I'm so funny it's crazy).